nature

Gardening In Suburbia

/ B / Leave a comment

Sigh… Ok, I know it’s been months again since I’ve made a post, but I haven’t really had much TO post about. Work, hang out with my husband and kid- wash, rinse, repeat.
Plus, as most of you know, I moved last August to Suburbia and left the orchard and garden I’d put seven years into behind with my ex husband. It’s ok. I’m not feeling sorry for myself and I don’t regret that decision AT ALL. Not one miniscule little bit. It was a lot of work, I had little to no help and even though I had all that space, land and time, it wasn’t fun anymore.

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Danny bought us a gorgeous house with a massive yard last August. The only caveat is, it’s in the middle of a suburban neighborhood- something I haven’t lived in since I was in my early twenties and didn’t care that my “yard” basically amounted to a square of dirt under the windows of our apartment, which was taken care of by the landlord and surrounded by a half acre of concrete. It was close to the hospital where I worked. I had pizza takeout and a ready access to all the Diet Dr Pepper I wanted. I had house plants. I was good with that.

But we moved here and I missed my garden. The ground here sucks. It reminds me very much of the ‘soil’ at our house at Lake of the Ozarks. Clay with layers of rock, more clay, more rock and it’s either dried out concrete texture or sticky muck that roots drown and suffocate in. So we decided if we’re having a garden here, it will need to be like it was there: raised beds that sit on the hard, crappy ground instead of spending hours upon hours amending the soil IN it.

Our deck needed to be replaced and we had a bunch of leftover lumber that needed a purpose, so Danny built me boxes. ALL THE WAY around the patio. And this is a HUGE patio. Each one of these boxes is about 10 feet long, over a foot wide and about two feet deep… and he built four of them! So I now have more garden space than I’m sure I know what to do with. Ok, to be fair we did manage to fill every single box with plants, but that’s beside the point. The point is, I have a massive garden. And my husband is a freaking rock star who goes out of his way to make me happy.

He built all of this over a couple weekend’s time. The bottom of the boxes are lined with cardboard (leftover from our move), topped with brush, sticks, yard clippings and leaves. The other neighbors burn every leaf and cut blade of grass that falls on their lawn. I probably drive them batshit crazy.

He added posts and trellis and took me plant shopping. HE TOOK ME PLANT SHOPPING!!! I made a joke about needing to buy 87 plants and he just shrugged and told me whatever made me happy.

See? I told you. Freaking rock star.

So we planted all of this and then had to go back out and put some of the seeds back in the ground after the neighborhood band of marauding squirrels decided they wanted to play in the dirt and dig up a bunch of the plants. I’m threatening to purchase a slingshot, but haven’t yet, so Danny put electric fence around it. So far, the plants have been left alone for the most part and our dog has only been dumb enough to put her nose on it twice. >.<

I have tomatoes, okra, several kinds of beans, several kinds of cucumber, squash, zucchini, sunflowers. I haven’t the first inkling how to cook squash, zucchini or okra, but Danny assures me that he can and he will show me. I’m just over the moon that I have a big garden to fuss over again. And it’s right out the back door. Talk about convenience! And doubles as a privacy screen from the neighbors. We plan on rebuilding the deck soon, but until we do, I will have a nice little spot to sit behind my plants.

My daughter also got me a wisteria for Mother’s Day. A plant I had at the Lake but was forbidden by my ex to have at the farm. She told Danny she was buying me a wisteria… he said, “Good, she’ll love that.” 🙂
Told you. Spoils me.
Not sure how he’s going to feel about modeling for Dirt. We’ll see? Better to ask forgiveness than permission? 😉

I’ll keep you updated on how all this turns out. I’ve never had to garden while paying a water bill before, we had well water both at the lake and the farm. I did at least build layers into these beds, so they should hold water well, especially as they break down over time.

Happy gardening!

-B

Fail Pond

/ B / Leave a comment

I may be a belle of dirt, but when it comes to water features I fear I’m more like a sad, ugly duckling.

After several days of working on our pond, I’ve decided that I absolutely hate it. I can’t get it to look natural, no matter how much rock I add  or which way I position them. I was also disappointed that I wasn’t going to get my waterfall with this configuration. So… after 3 days of moving rock and digging dirt and filling this thing with water, I’ve decided to scrap it and start over. It’s only the first of March, so I have time- right?
I keep thinking of all the other little projects that need my attention before we have plants ready for our veggie garden this year. Trellises to build, beds to prep, the lawn needs a dose of fertilizer and crab grass prevention, leaves to rake, clean up the pool area and build my daughter a sandbox- the list keeps growing and growing, faster than most of my plants.

But this pond has been sort of my nemesis in the past and apparently is rearing it’s ugliness again. My main gripe with it is that no matter how I dress it up; with rocks, with plants, carefully mounding dirt or sand all the way up to the edge, it always looks to me like someone dropped a plastic cattle trough in the ground. It looks manufactured and contrived and nothing like the tranquil- I- just- appeared- here- in- the- yard- of -my- own -volition- look that I really want. This year I added a ton more rock, I even found a nice flat rock to run the fountain over instead of having a black plastic fountain spraying in the air. My husband commented that this was a nice effect and he notices next to nothing in our yard. Still not happy with it.

I look at those black plastic edges mocking me and all I can see is FAIL FAIL FAIL.

After a very grumpy inspection of it yesterday, I went in to my computer, logged on to Amazon’s site and ordered stuff to build a new pond. I have a plan  in my head and 10 or so flat concrete blocks which I hope to build the waterfall out of. I’m going to have more digging to do, and some ground leveling behind where I want the pond to sit so the waterfall has a level base. I ordered an underlayment (protects the rubber liner from rocks, which our yard has in abundance), 2 rubber liners (one for the waterfall and one for the pond), some landscape friendly expand-a-foam (supposed to help direct the water and hold rocks in place) and more 1/2 inch tubing. I already picked up a pump last week. As soon as all this gets here, I’ll be starting over. . I may need to go pick up some mortar to keep the waterfall rocks in place- but only after I’ve lived with it for a few weeks and decided I’m happy and don’t want to change it again.

I’ll post pictures of the new version and it’s progress. Wish me luck!

-Belle